"Dark City'' by Alex
Proyas is a great visionary
achievement, a film so original and
exciting, it stirred my imagination
like ``Metropolis''
and ``2001:
A Space Odyssey.'' If it is
true, as the German director Werner
Herzog believes, that we live in an
age starved of new images, then ``Dark
City'' is a film to nourish us.
Not a story so much as an
experience, it is a triumph of art
direction, set design,
cinematography, special effects--and
imagination.

Blade
Runner''
extended existing trends, ``Dark
City'' leaps into the unknown. Its
vast noir metropolis seems to exist
in an alternate time line, with
elements of our present and past
combined with visions from a
futuristic comic book. Like the
first ``Batman,'' it presents
a city of night and shadows, but it
goes far beyond ``Batman'' in
a richness of ominous, stylized
sets, streets, skylines and
cityscapes. For once a movie city
equals any we could picture in our
minds; this is the city ``The
Fifth Element'' teased us
with, without coming through.

The story combines science fiction
with film noir--in more ways than we
realize and more surprising ways
than I will reveal. Its villains, in
their homburgs and flapping
overcoats, look like a nightmare
inspired by the thugs in ``M,'' but
their pale faces would look more at
home in ``The
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari''--and,
frighteningly, one of them is a
child. They are the Strangers,
shape-changers from another solar
system, and we are told they came to
Earth when their own world was
dying. (They create, in the process,
the first space vessel since ``Star
Wars'' that is newly
conceived--not a clone of that
looming mechanical vision.) They
inhabit a city of rumbling elevated
streamlined trains, dank flophouses,
scurrying crowds and store windows
that owe something to Edward
Hopper's ``Nighthawks.''

To get some specifics out
of the way first - on the
Blu-ray the Director's
Cut takes up 21.3 Gig of space and lasts - 1:51:43 - 11
minutes+ longer than the theatrical which takes up
19.4 Gig of space on the
Blu-ray. Quality appears
to be of the same consistently strong transfer as the DC. Contrary to
what others have published about the last SD edition
(original from 1998 - widescreen
and anamorphic) is that it is
single-layered and has a full-frame (pan-and-scan)
version on the opposite side of the disc. Unfortunately this
appears to be region-coded for Zone 'A' only.

I find it interesting to
see how far home theater software presentations have come in
a decade (actually exactly a decade since the SD came
out) but another big benefit to this new
package is the inclusion of this Director's Cut which
has some obvious changes (no voice-over narration in the
beginning etc.) and many more subtle alterations (two, of
which, indicated
in the screen captures below).

The image quality
differences show mostly in detail and colors which prove
superior in the
Blu-ray - it also
show a tad more information in the frame. The resized
captures don't tell the whole story but you may click the
Blu-ray to
full-resolution to get a better indication of how
improved the detail actually is. The color improvements are
a bit more obvious by looking at the caps below which
showcase truer skin tones, and more vibrancy in such areas
as Jennifer Connelly's lipstick, Melissa George's blonde
hair etc. Typical (now for New Line) the waxiness of DNR surfaces to
varying degrees - most prominently noticed in the last
comparison capture (sky backgrounds). Certain scenes, like in the diner, have a heavy
green bias in the
Blu-ray. Viewers with
higher-end systems may also note how limited the digital
noise in the
Blu-ray - this is DNR
folks and some will be more sensitive to it than others. It
softens and removes textured grain. The old
single-layered SD was fraught with these artifacts as there
are so many dark, low lit, scenes in the film. But to be
fair, for its time the SD was quite good - setting a pretty
competent standard in the medium - which wasn't dramatically
bettered for a couple of years. More to its credit, and the
film itself, is that it looked as visually arresting as it
did being only single-layered. But it is 10 years
later...

Audio-wise the new edition
has (only) a resounding DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track which
has some very strong moments. It effectively trounces the
old 5.1 from the SD with some intense activity from the
mains and many subtle moments cascading to the rears.

In terms of supplements
the original snapper cased release from 1998 was quite the
desirous product with two screen specific commentaries (one
from prominent critic Ebert who championed the film). It
also had some, mostly text based or static screen, bios and
the Metropolis comparison etc. . The
Blu-ray includes
those same, now rather dated, scene-specific commentaries
but adds quite a bit more. The paramount value of
Blu-ray is the relatively huge
amount of disc space (50 Gig) on a dual-layered disc. In
this case it allows inclusion of the original theatrical cut
(as found on the SD) as well as this new Director's version
which Proyas claims 'allows a truer representation of his
vision'. For the still-growing legion of fans of Dark
City this is quite a coup. So with over 40 Gig gone for
the two editions of the film - there is still enough for
some new stuff - a 5 minute introduction (Proyas and Ebert
separately) and some decent featurettes; Memories of
Shell Beach runs almost 45 minutes and is, more or less,
a 'Making of...' with input from many involved in the
production from the director himself to the screenwriters
and a couple of the actors as well. I got a bit more out of Dark City
by watching it and honestly my appreciation notched-up a
shade too. Architecture of Dreams runs over a half
hour and deals more with the visual properties of creation
of the sets for Dark City. One can see the detail and
time spent for this part of the film and it is quite
impressive. The
Blu-ray-unique feature
that will differ from the DC SD release is the 'Director's
Cut Fact Track' which can run concurrently to DC edition
of the film highlighting some of the differences etc. - for
those that are keen.

The second
disc holds the digital copy of the feature film able to
download to your favorite portable player (NOTE: watching
this, or any, films via cell-phone or other tiny-screened
device is not endorsed by this website - let's all put our
heads on straight).

Personally, I enjoyed the
Director's Cut much more than I did the theatrical -
although, admittedly, that full viewing was years ago. I
only verified that the
Blu-ray theatrical was
of the same quality as the DC - I didn't re-watch the entire
film. Could it have been seeing it in such a stellar 1080P
transfer? - quite possibly. Comparisons to

Blade
Runner
are apt and fans of that classic may well feel a kinship to
Proya's filmic vision in Dark City. I can see though
that this is cinema that will not suit all tastes and
despite the director's dismissal of critics that state that
it is 'style over substance' - many may feel that
description is apt. But I was very happy to have given this
another chance - especially considering the newer altered
version. Fans of the film will be rejoicing that this
Blu-ray
package offers so much despite the occasionally visible DNR
with its flickering and smearing. It looks and sounds vastly superior,
has a totally new version of the film, and offers abundantly
more supplemental information. It's really hard not to give
it a thumbs up all around - although those sensitive to the
DNR factor will probably be
extremely dissatisfied!